1) When Michelle Thomson MP (SNP whip resigned) twice bought properties in 2010 and sold them to her husband later the same day, by how much did their price increase between purchase and re-sale?
a) £50,000
b) £54,400
c) £60,000

2) When Michelle Thomson MP (SNP whip resigned) paid her business partner £95,000 for a property he had bought for £64,000 from a 77-year-old cancer-sufferer earlier the same day, how much did she receive as a “cashback” from her partner as part of the deal?
a) £25,000
b) £28,180.80
c) £30,000

3) During the 2014 referendum campaign, who was the director of the pro-independence “Business for Scotland” organisation (“The business network with a conscience. We will promote the values that can build a more equal and fairer Scotland.”)?
a) John Paul Getty III
b) Nelson Rockefeller Jnr.
c) Michelle Thomson

4) What happened in 2014 to the solicitor who had represented MP Michelle Thomson (SNP whip resigned) and/or her husband and/or her business partner in 13 different property deals?
a) He was named Solicitor of the Year by the Law Society of Scotland.
b) He was appointed as a judge in the Inner House of the Court of Session.
c) He was struck off by a Law Society Discipline Tribunal for 13 counts of professional misconduct.

5) Who was SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon referring to in the 2015 general election campaign when she said “Michelle knows what’s she’s doing, knows her area and knows about fairness, equality and prosperity. I say: Bring it on, Michelle!”?
a) Michelle Pfeiffer
b) Michelle Obama
c) Michelle Thomson

6) What is the current value of the seven properties in SNP MP Lisa Cameron’s property portfolio?
a) £618,000
b) £628,000
c) £638,000

7) What is the difference between the monthly rent charged for one of five former council flats owned by SNP MP Lisa Cameron and the monthly rent charged by the council for a council flat in the same area?
a) Higher by £140 a month.
b) Higher by £150 a month.
c) Higher by £160 a month.

8) Last September SNP MP Phil Boswell tabled a Parliamentary Question calling for a crackdown on tax avoidance. How much was the interest-free loan which Boswell himself received as part of a tax-avoidance scheme when working for a US energy company?
a) £16,000
b) £18,000
c) £20,000

9) SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has condemned tax avoidance as “obscene, immoral and despicable.” What did she say on learning of SNP MP Phil Boswell’s involvement in a tax-avoidance scheme?
a) This is obscene, immoral and despicable.
b) This is what happens when Scotland is governed by Westminster.
c) Nothing.

10) Including the discount secured for the venue (Stirling Castle’s Great Hall), how much did the SNP Holyrood government donate to the launch event of the Scottish Asian Women’s Association (founder: Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, now an SNP MP) in 2012?
a) £15,160
b) £16,160
c) £17,160

11) At its launch event, attended by 160 guests including Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon, SNP MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh’s Scottish Asian Women’s Association spent £4,500 on canapes and £400 on flowers. Over the next three years how much did the charity donate to worthy causes?
a) £600
b) £700
c) £800

12) In the run-up to the 2014 Euro-elections the Facebook page of which organisation appealed to its readers: “Remember to vote SNP on Thursday to get Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh elected and keep UKIP out of Scotland”?
a) A political party: the SNP.
b) An anti-racist campaign: Hope Not Hate.
c) A registered charity: the Scottish Asian Women’s Association.

13) Natalie McGarry MP (SNP whip resigned) is currently under police investigation for the unaccounted disappearance of how much money from donations made to Women for Independence?
a) £25,000
b) £30,000
c) £35,000

14) Who reported the disappearance of the £30,000 to the police, resulting in the investigation into Natalie McGarry MP (SNP whip resigned)?
a) Red Tories who always talk Scotland down.
b) Real Tories who always talk Scotland down.
c) 20 members of the Women for Independence National Committee, including seven SNP Holyrood candidates, one SNP branch convenor, the vice-chair of the British Association of Social Workers, and the Chief Executive of Scottish Women’s Aid.

16) Which song has Natalie McGarry MP (SNP whip resigned) described as “banter”?
a) Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
b) Bohemian Rhapsody.
c) The Famine Song.

17) In the 2015 general election campaign the SNP told voters: “The only way to lock the Tories out of 10 Downing Street is to vote SNP.” The SNP won 56 out of Scotland’s 59 seats. What was the result?
a) The Tories were locked out of 10 Downing Street.
b) The Tories returned to 10 Downing Street in a coalition with the Lib-Dems.
c) The Tories won an absolute majority of seats.

18) Which party did the SNP not call for a vote for anywhere in the UK in the 2015 general election campaign, while simultaneously listing what it would demand of it as the next Westminster government?
a) Green Party
b) Plaid Cymru
c) Labour Party

19) Which organisation adopted the following rule at its 2015 annual conference: “That no member shall within, or outwith, the Parliament publicly criticise a Group decision, policy, or another member of the Group”?
a) The Mafia (as an extension of the code of Omerta).
b) The Vatican (as an extension of the Bull of Papal Infallibility).
c) The SNP (because it’s the SNP).

20) 20 SNP branches have submitted motions to the party’s 2016 annual conference calling for a ban on fracking. What is likely to happen to the motions at the conference?
a) They will be passed.
b) They will not be passed.
c) Nothing – because they have all been ruled out of order and will not appear on the agenda.

21) What did the then SNP First Minister Alex Salmond prophesy in March of 2013?
a) The end of the world.
b) The second coming of Christ.
c) A second oil boom, beginning that year, which would generate tax revenues three times higher than official estimates.

22) What did the then SNP First Minister Alex Salmond, speaking in September of 2013, say was the value of North Sea oil and gas reserves?
a) Peanuts – it’s just something we dip into now and again when there’s a glut of shortbread on the world market.
b) Make up your own figure, provided that it has a lot of zeros at the end.
c) 1.5 trillions – twelve times higher than official estimates – “worth £300,000 for every man woman and child” in an independent Scotland.

23) What did SNP MP Alex Salmond have to say about the North Sea oil industry two years later?
a) The second oil boom is underway!
b) Hold out your hands for the first tranche of your £300,000!
c) The industry is suffering from tough low-oil-price conditions and needs every single market it can get.

24) Which piece of writing prophesised that the average price of a barrel of oil in the period 2014 to 2019 would be at least $113?
a) The Predictions of Nostradamus.
b) Mystic Meg’s horoscope for Leo in the “Sun” last week.
c) The SNP’s 2013 White Paper on Independence, “Scotland’s Future”.

25) What was the price of a barrel of oil in mid-January of 2016?
a) $113
b) $226
c) $27 (i.e. less than the cost of the barrel containing it).

26) According to “Scotland’s Future”, in the financial year 2015/16 North Sea oil revenues would amount to £8.3 billions. What is current estimate of North Sea oil revenues for 2015/16?
a) £8.3 billions
b) £16.6 billions
c) £130 millions

27) In January of this year SNP MP Dennis Robertson (Aberdeenshire West) said: “There is no crisis in the … … industry. We have just extracted more … than ever before. The industry is booming.” What industry was he talking about?
a) Dentistry.
b) Brain tumour surgery.
c) The North Sea oil industry.

28) How many jobs dependent on the North Sea oil industry had been lost in the twelve months prior to SNP MP Dennis Robertson’s statement?
a) 60,000
b) 70,000
c) 80,000

29) How did the daily rate of oil and gas extraction from the North Sea in the twelve months prior to SNP MP Dennis Robertson’s statement (“… just extracted more oil than ever before …”) compare with the daily rate of extraction in 1999?
a) Down by 2.5 million barrels a day.
b) Down by 3 million barrels a day.
c) Down by 3.5 million barrels a day.

30) In the 2014 referendum campaign which of the following did the SNP promise would always be lower in an independent Scotland than in England?
a) Levels of poverty.
b) Levels of social inequality.
c) Corporation tax.

31) What do the following have in common?
a) Air Passenger Duty.
b) Corporation Tax.
c) Taxation of the oil and gas industry.

32) Which of the following has SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon promised will never be cut?
a) Holyrood’s funding for Glasgow City Council.
b) Holyrood’s funding for maintenance of the Forth Road Bridge.
c) Holyrood’s annual contribution to the Sovereign Grant paid to the Queen.

33) When the SNP Holyrood government cut spending on its “non-profit distributing programme” from £353 millions to £20 millions in the financial year 2013/14, how did the then SNP Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon describe the cut?
a) A savage cut.
b) An unacceptably savage cut.
c) Reprofiling.

34) When the SNP Holyrood government cut spending on its green energy budget in the financial year 2014/15, how did the SNP Finance Secretary John Swinney describe the cut?
a) A savage cut.
b) An unacceptably savage cut.
c) Reprofiling.

35) When the SNP Holyrood government announced a cut of over £350 millions in funding for local authorities for the financial year 2016/17, at a cost of 15,000 jobs, how did SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon describe the cut?
a) A savage cut.
b) An unacceptably savage cut.
c) Reprofiling.

36) SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said that it was “absolutely” not true that maintenance budget cuts led to the closure of the Forth Road Bridge last December. When the former Chief Engineer subsequently gave evidence to MSPs, what did he blame for the closure?
a) The San Andreas Fault.
b) Mars being in conjunction with Saturn.
c) A 58% cut in the bridge’s maintenance budget by the SNP government in 2011.

37) Between the financial years 2010/11 and 2014/15, by how much did the SNP Holyrood government cut spending on pre-school education places, primary school pupils, and secondary school pupils?
a) 7%, 10% and 3% respectively.
b) 8%, 11% and 4% respectively.
c) 9%, 12% and 5% respectively.

38) By how much did the SNP Holyrood government cut Further Education funding in real terms between 2010 and 2015?
a) 15%
b) 20%
c) 25%

39) What was the fall in the number of students at Further Education colleges in Scotland between 2010 and 2013?
a) 100,000
b) 108,000
c) 116,000

40) What was the fall in the number of teaching staff in Further Education colleges in Scotland over the same period?
a) 6,000
b) 7,000
c) 8,000

41) The poorest 20% of youth in England are 2.5 times less likely than the wealthiest 20% to go to university. What is the figure for the poorest 20% of youth in Scotland, compared to the wealthiest 20% of youth in Scotland?
a) 3 times less likely to go to university.
b) 3.5 times less likely to go to university.
c) 4 times less likely to go to university.

42) In England the proportion of university students from non-professional backgrounds is 33%. What is the equivalent figure for Scotland?
a) 26%
b) 27%
c) 28%

43) How much have owners of band ‘G’ and ‘H’ properties ‘saved’ in the period 2008-2016 as a result of the SNP’s council tax freeze?
a) £250 millions.
b) £300 millions.
c) £350 millions.

44) On average, a low-paid worker living in a Band ‘A’ property ‘saves’ £60 a year (0.3% of income) as a result of the SNP’s council tax freeze. On average, how much does someone living in a Band ‘H’ property ‘save’ each year as a result of the freeze?
a) £324 (0.7% of income).
b) £370 (0.8% of income).
c) £394 (0.9% of income).

45) What did SNP MP Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh say on her return from a visit to Iran as part of an official SNP delegation last December?
a) A reactionary, homophobic, misogynist regime.
b) So that’s John Mason’s vision for Shettleston!
c) While Iran clearly has a distance to travel on gender equality, so too does Holyrood Westminster.

46) Which one of the following is not boycotted by all true Scots?
a) B&Q
b) Sainsbury’s
c) Iran

47) And which one of the following is not boycotted by all true Scots either?
a) Tunnock’s Teacakes
b) USDAW
c) North Korea

48) With which of the following countries does SNP MP Alex Salmond look forward to Scotland developing a “productive and enduring relationship”?
a) England
b) Israel
c) Iran

49) After 30 years of opposition, what did the SNP annual conference in 2012 vote in favour of membership of?
a) The United Kingdom.
b) The Russian Federation.
c) NATO

50) The Facebook page of the Scottish Resistance carries a video clip of one of their members wielding a sledgehammer. What is he doing with the sledgehammer?
a) Repairing the Forth Road Bridge.
b) Laying the foundations of an independent Scotland.
c) Crushing a pack of Tunnock’s teacakes, with the words “This is a wee message to every c**t who is still a f***king secret teacake eater. F**k Tunnock’s.”

51) Which books did North Lanarkshire SNP councillor Rosa Zambonini tweet that she would ban her children from reading?
a) Books containing lots of violence.
b) Books containing lots of sex.
c) Books by J.K. Rowling.

52) Dundee SNP councillor Craig Melville was suspended from the SNP for having allegedly tweeted which of the following messages to a female Muslim SNP member?
a) Scottish nationalism is different from all other nationalisms – it’s a civic nationalism.
b) That Man to Man the warld o’er shall brithers be for a’ that.
c) It’s not personal, I just f****** hate your religion and I’ll do all in my life do defeat your filth. We live in an uneducated loopy left-wing society which is more interested in claiming benefits. … Horrible murdering Islamic c***s.

53) Which of the following has North Airdrie SNP councillor and Central Scotland SNP list candidate Sophia Coyle said should be banned from fostering and adopting children?
a) Members of ISIS.
b) Members of al Qaeda.
c) Gay couples.

54) According to cybernat Shelley Detlefsen, what was the cause of the cancer which killed David Bowie?
a) Smoking.
b) Poor diet.
c) Supporting a ‘No’ vote in the 2014 referendum.

55) The Tories have recently promised to “stand shoulder to shoulder” with the SNP. But “stand shoulder to shoulder” with them doing what?
a) Repairing the Forth Road Bridge.
b) Fracking.
c) Opposing Labour’s proposal for a 1% income tax rise.

56) On 28th January this year SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted: “I’m standing up for a fair deal for Scotland – Labour should try it some time, instead of always backing the Tories.” What happened six days later, when Labour proposed a 1p increase in income tax?
a) Labour voted with the Tories.
b) Labour voted with the SNP.
c) The SNP voted with the Tories.

57) What did the SNP support in 1999 but oppose in 2016?
a) Membership of NATO.
b) Membership of the European Union.
c) Increasing income tax in Scotland by 1p.

58) According to SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, nurses would be hit harder by Labour’s proposal for a 1% income tax increase than she herself would be. What is the explanation for this claim?
a) Nurses in Scotland are paid over £136,000 a year.
b) Nicola Sturgeon is paid her salary through a tax haven.
c) Nicola Sturgeon can’t count.

59) Which of the following politicians is the highest paid?
a) The President of France.
b) The Prime Minister of Spain.
c) SNP First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.

60) What did the by then former SNP First Minister Alex Salmond cancel after the referendum of September 2014?
a) His coronation as Supreme Leader and Great Helmsman.
b) Renaming the Royal Mile the Alex Salmond Mile.
c) His television licence.
d) All of the above.

Answers on a postcard to:

Nicola Sturgeon, Bute House (absent a commercial transaction with Michelle Thomson and her husband in the meantime), 6 Charlotte Square, Edinburgh, EH2 4DR.

How many questions do you think you answered correctly?

0-20: You should join the SNP. Because they all say “But we never knew about that!” as well. 21-40: You should join RISE. Because you have some (modest) criticisms of the SNP, but not so many that you can’t approach SNP supporters to beg for their list vote in May. 41-60: You are an anti-Scottish Red-Tory traitor who is always talking Scotland down.

Political Touristsaid,

Fair play to DS.
First folks to repost this SNPbad were the Scottish Fash and their various allies in Better Together.
Soggy Oggies and Smash the SNP, don’t you just luv them.
Take it SLAB are next week.
60 years of shafting the working class.

Glasgow Working Classsaid,

And the Kosovans ran rackets from certain Glasgow high rises that were not demolished just to accommodate them. The working class left to pick up the ruins from other failed countries while the leftie liberals that lumbered them live safely in suburbia.

So the SNP has its fair share of tartan Tories and loathsome corrupt careerists on the make – who knew?

And yet it is now the party that enjoys the support not just of what remains of the Scottish working class but that of a solid half the Scottish people – while Labour in Scotland is now being overtaken by the real Tories in latest polls.

But Rosa Luxemburg told us that Marx and Engels (and Lenin) were wrong and nationalism is always the first enemy of the working class – so no actual analysis of how this catastrophe came about is required.

And in May the SNP will win another massive victory and in not so many more years the Union will end and rather a lot of us will be on refugee trains north.

But who cares as long as the correct slogans are shouted and we can signal our virtue within our ever smaller circle of true believers.

Jim Denhamsaid,

PT: you are a fucking liar: You’ve been exposed several times here. One more repetition of your lies about the referendum and you’ll be banned. Not something I do lightly, but your rank dishonesty – even after being corrected and failing the challenge to provide any shred of evidence for your claims – is now getting on my tits. Yellow card, pal.

Joe Baxtersaid,

Well comrade (comrade still the correct word?) obviously you don’t live up here and have to put up with all the sanctimonious, condescending shit from the SNP and its supporters, perhaps if you did you might appreciate a little bit of the humour. If independence is ever achieved probably my first thought will be where the hell can I go to get away from the hellhole that Scottish society will likely have become. One chink of light, there does seem to be some degree of disenchantment with the SNP developing among those lefties who liked to think their support for a yes vote was not just another form of nationalism.

As a Labour Party member living at the arse-end of Tory England I am in no way a supporter of the SNP.

However half the Scottish nation are.

And no matter how dodgy or just plain deranged some of its representatives and supporters are that is the new reality that won’t go away and however loudly you chant your ultra-leftist Luxemburgist slogans the Scots will carry on voting for nationalists until the ‘national problem’ is solved.

We also have to face the unpalatable fact that Labour may never win an outright majority in a UK election again – and so if there is any hope at all of turfing out the Tories within the next decade it will require some sort of coalition in which the SNP’s guaranteed 50 MPs will inevitably be the largest non-Labour component.

This tribalist hatred not just of the SNP but of the solid half of the Scottish people that supports them is therefore entirely suicidal.

So if you want to keep solidarity with workers across borders, as in south of Berwick, you’re a BNP mug or an Orange Order nutcase? This kind of talk is just the linguistic equivalent of flag waving. It would be simple to lump these SNP morons in with Lega Norde racists and the various National Movement shithouses across Europe, they actually share Euro Parliamentary blocks with them, but it would be too easy. The homophobe and anti Semite, Brian Souter is fine as a major SNP inner circle guy, but those that voted ‘No’ are fascists? Grow up! These Nationalists even have the rubbish semi pornographer Jack Vetriano for their ‘national artist, ha ha ha! I bet Rembrant is turning in his fuckin grave. They call Irvine Welsh a ‘great writer’ ffs.
I watched the idiots and tartan nutters on the SNP ‘National clan homecoming day’, yep, that is what they called it. A fair contingent were US southern state racists, burbling on about their ‘Celtic brothers’. It was enough to turn your stomach. These idiots even staged a reenactment of the Battle of Sterling Bridge, complete with silly councillors dressed as knights and morons waving flags, all rattling on about how they battered the ‘English’. This is not a fantasy, these idiots are real. You can check it.
Never seen one SNP rep on any picket line I have ever been on though. Opportunists, chancers and closet racists the lot of them.

Now it is true that the it appears now mostly moribund European Free Alliance to which the SNP belonged did include several very dubious right regionalist parties (although not AFAICT the Lega Nord), but with the 2014 EUP elections parties like the Flemish N-VA jumped ship from the EFA to the European Conservatives and Reformists where they can feel at home with our own dear Tories and the likes of Poland’s Law and Justice and the True Finns.

c) ‘Opportunists, chancers and closet racists the lot of them’ – that’s 1.5 million Scots who voted SNP – some of whom I know personally to be none of these things.

Yes any party that has 1.5 million supporters and 100,000 members will include many, many utterly vile and disgusting people and I’ve had run-ins with some truly appalling Cybernats myself on twitter etc.

But in this they represent the Scottish nation as a whole.

And if you like at the Scottish Social Attitudes survey and other polls SNP supporters are en masse (which is the only way one should look at them) no more reactionary, racist etc than Labour supporters.

And if like our host here you are a confirmed Europhile the most pro-European population in the UK are probably Scots Nats…

Or are we going to play the No True Scotsman game in a absolutely literal sense?

Rilkesaid,

Political Touristsaid,

The problem is SLAB’s leadership have been right-wing for decades.
They wait until their MP numbers are less than 1906 and then mention a penny on tax.
Too little too late.
The cheeky characters even sent me my £3 quid back.

Glasgow Working Classsaid,

Steven Johnstonsaid,

Joe Baxtersaid,

What a humourless chump you appear to be McCarthy. Still to take you seriously for a moment would you like to point out where you found the “ultra-leftist Luxemburgist slogans” in what I wrote? There is a disturbing degree of irrationality behind a lot of the support for the SNP, forgive me if I find that objectionable. 50% of the Scottish nation are SNP supporters? Dearie me what is this “Scottish nation”? 50% of it supports the SNP? Not even close; it may have escaped your attention but the independence referendum did go against the Yes campaign and it would appear in the latest polling support for independence has lessened. 50% of the vote in a general election is not the same as 50% of the population of a country